Mike Houston: Third Street rail upgrades are needed for safety

Wednesday

Feb 5, 2014 at 1:08 AM

In last Sunday’s letters to the editor, a writer questioned the expenditure of federal funds for improvements on the Third Street railroad tracks.

While I agree with Sen. Dick Durbin and the other members of our Congressional delegation that the expenditure on the Third Street tracks should be kept to a minimum, there is a need to improve the safety on those tracks and to come into compliance with the current safety requirements of the Illinois Commerce Commission, which has jurisdiction over the tracks.

There are 35 daily trains that pass through Springfield on three sets of tracks that are within 16 blocks of each other. It is estimated that by the year 2030 that number will increase to 81 trains daily. The vast majority of those trains will be longer and heavier than what we have ever experienced.

While I would prefer to move the train traffic from the Third Street tracks to the 10th Street rail corridor immediately, funding for that transfer is not available at this time. This is a long-term project that is estimated to take approximately eight years from start to finish after the funding has been secured.

Therefore it is necessary to make those safety improvements on the Third Street tracks, as we do not know how long they will be used.

The consolidation of the tracks and trains to the 10th Street rail corridor is critically important to our community’s future, as the vast majority of the increased train traffic will go down the Third Street tracks until we can move them to the 10th Street corridor.

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